Virtue

 

 Virescit vulnere virtus

Virtue is a sexist word. It stems from the Latin word for man, vir, as in adult male human. (The generic is homo, related to the broadly human.)  So in a way, virtue is acting like a man. Sorry, ladies.

It seems to me that the three qualities required of an adult male human* for him to be considered not just a "person" but a man are: power**, courage, and skill. These are rooted in the threefold task of men in our early evolution: fathering, fighting and feeding (especially by hunting). Sex and violence. In a hunter-gatherer society, our first home, hunting was mostly for the men, gathering mostly for the women. Call me a fundamentalist, but I still see strong continuations of these roles in the two sexes.

But you can be a father, you can be a fighter and you can provide well for your kin and/or tribe, indubitably a man-- and still be a tyrant. I mean, who did these things better than Ghenghis Khan?

So I then ask, what are the necessary virtues of a man --powerful, brave and skillful --who is also good, a good man?

First word that leaps to mind is "honor."

Discuss.
__________________

*I sometimes clear a space for this discussion by defining through exclusion: a man is not a boy, not a woman, not God.

**I could just as well say "strength", as Jack Donovan does, but I like "power" because the liberal culture I live in finds "power" --unless you're an official victim wanting or wielding it-- essentially oppressive.